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MITRE ATT&CK® Tool

S0029: PsExec

PsExec is a free Microsoft tool that can be used to execute a program on another computer. It is used by IT administrators and attackers.[1][2]

EnterpriseS0029ToolObject v1.7Modified
Glexia's Take · Automated analysis

Security context for executives and security teams

Automation confidenceMedium

S0029: PsExec describes [PsExec](https://attack.mitre.org/software/S0029) is a free Microsoft tool that can be used to execute a program on another computer. It is used by IT administrators and attackers.(Citation: Russinovich Sysinternals)(Citation: SANS PsExec)

Executive priority

S0029: PsExec is an official MITRE ATT&CK software. Glexia treats it as defensive behavior context for prioritizing monitoring, control validation, and response planning without using the object by itself as an attribution claim.

Technical view

Security teams should validate S0029: PsExec by reviewing the official ATT&CK relationships, mapped tactics (the mapped ATT&CK tactic context), supported platforms (Windows), and available local telemetry before making detection or mitigation decisions.

Likely telemetry

  • Official ATT&CK relationships and object metadata
  • Network, endpoint, and security-tool telemetry

Detection direction

  • Validate whether S0029: PsExec appears in your detection coverage and tabletop scenarios.
  • Use the object to align executive risk language with SOC, incident response, and detection engineering work.
  • Do not treat ATT&CK relationship context as attribution without corroborating evidence.

Mitigation priorities

  • Map the object to existing controls and identify missing telemetry or response ownership.
  • Prioritize mitigations that reduce exposure on the listed platforms and tactics.
  • Review adjacent ATT&CK relationships before changing policy, detections, or reporting language.
Additional notes and limits

Baseline Glexia take generated from the official MITRE ATT&CK STIX object, source hash, tactics, platforms, and detection fields. It is safe to replace with a richer model-generated take for the same source hash later.

This baseline take is source-grounded and schema-validated, but it does not include environment-specific telemetry, incident evidence, or threat-intelligence corroboration.

Generated from the cited source records. This long-tail analysis has not been individually reviewed by a named human.

Official MITRE ATT&CK definition

PsExec

PsExec is a free Microsoft tool that can be used to execute a program on another computer. It is used by IT administrators and attackers.[1][2]

View the same entry on attack.mitre.org (MITRE-hosted reference; in-page links above use the Glexia ATT&CK library.)

Glexia analysis

How security teams should use this page

Treat this object as behavior context, not an attribution claim. Validate the related groups, software, data sources, and mitigations against official ATT&CK relationships and your own telemetry before making control-coverage decisions.

ATT&CK relationship table

Techniques used

This mirrors the MITRE pattern of making group, software, campaign, and technique relationships scannable. Relationship notes come from mirrored ATT&CK relationship text when available.

5 rows
DomainIDNameRelationship / procedure
EnterpriseT1021.002SMB/Windows Admin SharesSub-technique

PsExec, a tool that has been used by adversaries, writes programs to the ADMIN$ network share to execute commands on remote systems.CitationPsExec Russinovich

EnterpriseT1543.003Windows ServiceSub-technique

PsExec can leverage Windows services to escalate privileges from administrator to SYSTEM with the -s argument.[1]

EnterpriseT1570Lateral Tool Transfer

PsExec can be used to download or upload a file over a network share.CitationPsExec Russinovich

EnterpriseT1569.002Service ExecutionSub-technique

Microsoft Sysinternals PsExec is a popular administration tool that can be used to execute binaries on remote systems using a temporary Windows service.[1]

EnterpriseT1136.002Domain AccountSub-technique

PsExec has the ability to remotely create accounts on target systems.CitationNCC Group Fivehands June 2021

Associated objects

Groups, software, and campaigns

GroupEnterprise

G1017: Volt Typhoon

Volt Typhoon is a People's Republic of China (PRC) state-sponsored actor that has been active since at least 2021, primarily targeting critical infrastructure organizations in the US and its territories including Guam. Volt Typhoon's targeting and pattern of behavior have been assessed as pre-positioning to enable lateral movement to operational technology (OT) assets for potential destructive or disruptive attacks. Volt Typhoon has emphasized stealth in operations using web shells, living-off-the-land (LOTL) binaries, hands on keyboard activities, and stolen credentials.[1][2][3][4]. The group has leveraged compromised SOHO routers to proxy command and control traffic and obscure its infrastructure, activity associated with the KV botnet.[5].

Reporting indicates a separate initial access cluster, SYLVANITE, has been observed exploiting internet-facing edge devices and transferring access to Volt Typhoon, also tracked as VOLTZITE, for follow-on operations. [6]

GroupEnterprise

G0010: Turla

Turla is a cyber espionage threat group that has been attributed to Russia's Federal Security Service (FSB). They have compromised victims in over 50 countries since at least 2004, spanning a range of industries including government, embassies, military, education, research and pharmaceutical companies. Turla is known for conducting watering hole and spearphishing campaigns, and leveraging in-house tools and malware, such as Uroburos.[1][2][3][4][5]

GroupEnterprise

G0114: Chimera

Chimera is a suspected China-based threat group that has been active since at least 2018 targeting the semiconductor industry in Taiwan as well as data from the airline industry.[1][2]

GroupEnterprise

G0006: APT1

APT1 is a Chinese threat group that has been attributed to the 2nd Bureau of the People’s Liberation Army (PLA) General Staff Department’s (GSD) 3rd Department, commonly known by its Military Unit Cover Designator (MUCD) as Unit 61398. [1]

GroupEnterprise

G0076: Thrip

Thrip is an espionage group that has targeted satellite communications, telecoms, and defense contractor companies in the U.S. and Southeast Asia. The group uses custom malware as well as "living off the land" techniques. [1]

GroupEnterprise

G1009: Moses Staff

Moses Staff is a suspected Iranian threat group that has primarily targeted Israeli companies since at least September 2021. Moses Staff openly stated their motivation in attacking Israeli companies is to cause damage by leaking stolen sensitive data and encrypting the victim's networks without a ransom demand.[1]

Security researchers assess Moses Staff is politically motivated, and has targeted government, finance, travel, energy, manufacturing, and utility companies outside of Israel as well, including those in Italy, India, Germany, Chile, Turkey, the UAE, and the US.[2]

GroupEnterprise

G0098: BlackTech

BlackTech is a suspected Chinese cyber espionage group that has primarily targeted organizations in East Asia--particularly Taiwan, Japan, and Hong Kong--and the US since at least 2013. BlackTech has used a combination of custom malware, dual-use tools, and living off the land tactics to compromise media, construction, engineering, electronics, and financial company networks.[1][2][3]

GroupEnterprise

G0003: Cleaver

Cleaver is a threat group that has been attributed to Iranian actors and is responsible for activity tracked as Operation Cleaver. [1] Strong circumstantial evidence suggests Cleaver is linked to Threat Group 2889 (TG-2889). [2]

GroupEnterprise

G0105: DarkVishnya

DarkVishnya is a financially motivated threat actor targeting financial institutions in Eastern Europe. In 2017-2018 the group attacked at least 8 banks in this region.[1]

GroupEnterprise

G0034: Sandworm Team

Sandworm Team is a destructive threat group that has been attributed to Russia's General Staff Main Intelligence Directorate (GRU) Main Center for Special Technologies (GTsST) military unit 74455.[1][2] This group has been active since at least 2009.[3][4][5][6]

In October 2020, the US indicted six GRU Unit 74455 officers associated with Sandworm Team for the following cyber operations: the 2015 and 2016 attacks against Ukrainian electrical companies and government organizations, the 2017 worldwide NotPetya attack, targeting of the 2017 French presidential campaign, the 2018 Olympic Destroyer attack against the Winter Olympic Games, the 2018 operation against the Organisation for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons, and attacks against the country of Georgia in 2018 and 2019.[1][2] Some of these were conducted with the assistance of GRU Unit 26165, which is also referred to as APT28.[7]

GroupEnterprise

G1046: Storm-1811

Storm-1811 is a financially-motivated entity linked to Black Basta ransomware deployment. Storm-1811 is notable for unique phishing and social engineering mechanisms for initial access, such as overloading victim email inboxes with non-malicious spam to prompt a fake "help desk" interaction leading to the deployment of adversary tools and capabilities.[1][2][3][4]

CampaignEnterprise

C0058: SharePoint ToolShell Exploitation

The SharePoint ToolShell Exploitation campaign was conducted in July 2025 and encompassed the first waves of exploitation against incompletely patched spoofing (CVE-2025-49706) and remote code execution (CVE-2025-49704) vulnerabilities affecting on-premises Microsoft SharePoint servers. Later patched and updated as CVE-2025-53770 and CVE-2025-53771, the ToolShell vulnerabilities were widely exploited including by China-based ransomware actor Storm-2603 and espionage actors Threat Group-3390 and ZIRCONIUM. SharePoint ToolShell Exploitation targeted multiple regions and industries including finance, education, energy, and healthcare across Asia, Europe, and the United States.[1][2][3][4][5]

CampaignEnterprise

C0063: 2025 Poland Wiper Attacks

2025 Poland Wiper Attacks is a Russian state-sponsored campaign that conducted destructive cyberattacks against Polish energy infrastructure in December 2025. Targets included more than 30 wind and photovoltaic farms, a combined heat and power (CHP) plant, and a manufacturing sector company. The attacks on the distributed energy resources (DER) disrupted communications between affected facilities and the distribution system operator, but did not impact electricity generation or heat supply. Across the campaign, threat actors deployed two previously undocumented wiper tools, DynoWiper, a Windows-based wiper and LazyWiper, a PowerShell wiper, distributed via malicious Group Policy Objects. At the CHP plant, threat actors had maintained access since at least March 2025, using that foothold to obtain credentials and move laterally before attempting wiper deployment. Some reporting has assessed the activity to be consistent with Russian Federal Security Service (FSB) threat activity group Dragonfly, also tracked as STATIC TUNDRA, while other reporting attributes the destructive wiper activities to the Russian General Staff Main Intelligence Directorate (GRU) threat activity group ELECTRUM, also tracked as Sandworm Team.[1][2][3][4]

CampaignEnterprise

C0004: CostaRicto

CostaRicto was a suspected hacker-for-hire cyber espionage campaign that targeted multiple industries worldwide, with a large number being financial institutions. CostaRicto actors targeted organizations in Europe, the Americas, Asia, Australia, and Africa, with a large concentration in South Asia (especially India, Bangladesh, and Singapore), using custom malware, open source tools, and a complex network of proxies and SSH tunnels.[1]

CampaignEnterprise

C0002: Night Dragon

Night Dragon was a cyber espionage campaign that targeted oil, energy, and petrochemical companies, along with individuals and executives in Kazakhstan, Taiwan, Greece, and the United States. The unidentified threat actors searched for information related to oil and gas field production systems, financials, and collected data from SCADA systems. Based on the observed techniques, tools, and network activities, security researchers assessed the campaign involved a threat group based in China.[1]

CampaignEnterprise

C0014: Operation Wocao

Operation Wocao was a cyber espionage campaign that targeted organizations around the world, including in Brazil, China, France, Germany, Italy, Mexico, Portugal, Spain, the United Kingdom, and the United States. The suspected China-based actors compromised government organizations and managed service providers, as well as aviation, construction, energy, finance, health care, insurance, offshore engineering, software development, and transportation companies.[1]

Security researchers assessed the Operation Wocao actors used similar TTPs and tools as APT20, suggesting a possible overlap. Operation Wocao was named after an observed command line entry by one of the threat actors, possibly out of frustration from losing webshell access.[1]

CampaignEnterprise

C0023: Operation Ghost

Operation Ghost was an APT29 campaign starting in 2013 that included operations against ministries of foreign affairs in Europe and the Washington, D.C. embassy of a European Union country. During Operation Ghost, APT29 used new families of malware and leveraged web services, steganography, and unique C2 infrastructure for each victim.[1]

Relationship explorer

All related ATT&CK context

Change history

Object version and sync metadata

The fields below describe the current mirrored snapshot. When Glexia retains multiple ATT&CK source imports, you can open the table to compare the same object across releases (hashes and MITRE timestamps). For MITRE’s own release notes and roadmap, see ATT&CK resources — Updates.

ATT&CK release
20.0
Object version
1.7
Created
Modified
Raw hash
33ae638757e82ee0...
Imported snapshots across ATT&CK releases(3)
ReleaseBundle importedObject versionModifiedStatusRaw hash
20.01.7Current bundle33ae638757e8…
19.21.7Older bundle33ae638757e8…
19.11.7Older bundle33ae638757e8…
Raw source

Mirrored ATT&CK source object

The raw object is retained through the mirrored ATT&CK source bundle and object hash. The raw endpoint returns the exact object from the mirrored bundle when available.

Source references

External references and citations

MITRE external references are preserved separately from Glexia analysis so citations remain traceable to their original source records.

  1. [1]
    Russinovich Sysinternals

    Russinovich, M. (2014, May 2). Windows Sysinternals PsExec v2.11. Retrieved May 13, 2015.

    Open source URL
  2. [2]
    SANS PsExec

    Pilkington, M. (2012, December 17). Protecting Privileged Domain Accounts: PsExec Deep-Dive. Retrieved August 17, 2016.

    Open source URL
  3. [3]
    mitre-attackS0029
    Open source URL
Source and licensing

Source: MITRE ATT&CK®. © 2026 The MITRE Corporation. This work is reproduced and distributed with the permission of The MITRE Corporation. MITRE ATT&CK and ATT&CK are registered trademarks of The MITRE Corporation. Glexia is not affiliated with or endorsed by MITRE.